August 10, 2010

By Mark A. Miller

JoiBiz, LLC, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, caters to the small and medium-size business market, offering turnkey communications solutions that claim to offer features not traditionally available with many traditional PBX solutions.

JoiBiz utilizes the network developed by its parent company, Hawk Communications, also based in Atlanta, which has been an Internet Service Provider since 1999. Hawk developed an interesting business model – provide the best product, the best price, and keep the call centers in America. They also had an interesting pricing model, selling their initial dial up service to customers for $7.77 per month when other firms were charging more than $20.00. In 2006, the firm launched their JoiPhone service, with the goal of bringing joy to American families by offering a lower monthly phone bill, while still providing quality service and technical support. The JoiPhone service is currently priced as low as $6.95 per month.

JoiBiz caters to the small business marketplace (presumably bringing them joy as well), leveraging the experience that Hawk Communications gained providing service to residential customers, and currently providing five different services to the business community. All of these services are provided on a turn-key basis, which reduces the need for the customer to purchase any additional hardware, or separate service contracts. In addition, these services are installed, customized as required, and monitored by the Joibiz staff, further reducing the customer’s network management responsibilities.

The JoiBiz Small Business Phone Line is billed as a reliable digital phone line for small business, providing basic telephony features that include: call waiting, three-way calling, call hunting, call forwarding, voicemail with auto attendant, voicemail-to-e-mail conversion, and caller ID. The plan is priced at $29.95 per month, and includes unlimited incoming calls, 2,000 minutes of outgoing calls to the United States and nine other countries, with rates of $0.02 per minute thereafter. Low international rates to other countries are also available.

The JoiBiz Teleconference Service includes a dedicated local call number throughout the United States, with toll-free and international numbers available. The service features unlimited conference bridges, unlimited participants, conference recording, and a reservation-less system. This service is available without a contract, and is priced at $1.95 per month, plus $0.02 per minute. Dedicated toll-free numbers cost $2.95 per month plus $0.019 per minute, and international numbers price out at $4.95 per month, with no additional per minute charge.

JoiBiz DSL Service is designed as a reliable business-class DSL Internet service, claiming 6 Mbps download and 768 Kbps upload speeds, with always-on connections. This service is currently available in 34 states, and is priced at $49.95 per month, with no minimum contract required.

JoiBiz T1 Service offers a reliable, business-class Internet service providing full duplex data transmission speeds of 1.5 Mbps, with up to 6 Mbps speeds available. JoiBiz provides a service level agreement (SLA) guarantee of 99.99 percent uptime, and 100 percent port speed. Also included to the customer are eight static IP addresses, with up to 253 addresses available. Cost for this service is $349.00 per month, excluding the on-site installation charge for the T1 service and router, which is quoted as an additional fee.

The JoiBiz Hosted PBX Service provides a complete solution that includes the telephone lines, hosting fee, PBX hardware and software, system setup and customization, plus maintenance, upgrades, and technical support.

The system features a truly private hosted PBX service that includes unlimited extensions and unlimited lines, with no per-seat charge. The service includes a number of advanced communications features, including an auto attendant with both day and night modes; a dial by name directory; call queuing with unlimited callers holding; call conferencing; the real-time display of all queues and extensions, available from any PC; the ability to record all calls, or provide on-demand recording, plus an interface to listen to all recordings.

JoiBiz can port their customer’s existing telephone number, or customers can choose a new number. Additional U.S. numbers are available for $1.95 per month; local numbers are also available in over 40 countries, starting at $4.95 per month. Toll-free numbers can be added for $2.95 per month, plus $0.039 per minute of usage. Cost for the hosted service is $49.95 per month, plus $0.01 per minute for incoming calls, and $0.02 per minute for outgoing calls.

Further information on the Joibiz solutions can be found at www.joibiz.com. Our next tutorial will continue our review of various service providers hosted voice solutions.

Author’s Biography
Mark A. Miller, P.E. is President of DigiNet Corporation®, a Denver-based consulting engineering firm. He is the author of many books on networking technologies, including Voice over IP Technologies, and Internet Technologies Handbook, both published by John Wiley & Sons.